The Washington Post: Useful-Idiot Shills for a Failed, Frantic Status Quo That Has Lost Control of the Narrative

Don't you think it fair and reasonable that anyone accusing me of being a shill for Russian propaganda ought to read my ten books in their entirety and identify the sections that support their slanderous accusation?

I was amused to find my site listed on the now-infamous list of purportedly Russian-controlled propaganda sites cited by The Washington Post. I find it amusing because I invite anyone to search my 3,600-page archive of published material over the past decade (which includes some guest posts and poems) and identify a single pro-Russia or pro-Russian foreign policy entry.

If anything, my perspective is pro-US dollar, pro-liberty, pro-open markets, pro-local control, pro-free-press, pro-innovation, and pro-opportunities to rebuild America's abandoned, decaying localized economies: in other words, the exact opposite of Russian propaganda.

My "crime" is a simple one: challenging the ruling elite's narrative. Labeling all dissent "enemy propaganda" is of course the classic first phase of state-sponsored propaganda and the favorite tool of well-paid illiberal apologists for an illiberal regime.

Labeling everyone who dissents or questions the ruling elite's narrative as tools of an enemy power is classic McCarthy-era witch-hunting, i.e. a broad-brush way of marginalizing and silencing critics with an accusation that is easy to fabricate but difficult to prove.

Such unsupported slander is a classic propaganda technique. It has more in common with Nazi propaganda than with real journalism.

The real useful-idiot shills are the editors and hacks paid by the Washington Post, who are busy penning articles such as "Why the electoral college should choose Hillary Clinton". Isn't this fundamentally a call to over-ride the Constitutional framework of the republic's democracy?

In other words, the ruling elite's candidate lost, so let's subvert democracy to "right this terrible wrong" that was wrought by fed-up debt-serfs.

Substitution is a useful technique to reveal propaganda: if Trump had lost by a thin margin, would the The Washington Post publish an article "Why the electoral college should choose Donald Trump"?

Any site suggesting such an outlandish subversion of American democracy would of course by labeled Russian-controlled propaganda by The Washington Post. In other words, it's OK for the organs of Imperial Propaganda to call for the subversion of the Constitution, but if someone else dares to do so, you know the drill: they're labeled a tool of Russian propaganda.

Just as a reminder, this is the status quo / ruling elite's handiwork The Washington Post shills/propagandists support: a status quo of institutionalized privilege, corruption and systemically soaring wealth and income inequality:

The institutionalized impoverishment of non-elite students:

The institutionalized impoverishment of the bottom 99.9%:

The institutionalized impoverishment of everyone below the protected technocrat-insider class of shills, apparatchiks and professionals:

This is what The Washington Post is pushing: a parasitic, predatory, exploitive, ruinously corrupt and venal ruling class and its army of apologists/lackeys/factotums.

The fundamental source of the Post's hysterical accusations is the ruling elite has lost control of the narrative. This is the source of the mainstream media's angst-tinged hysteria and frantic efforts to marginalize and discredit any dissenting narratives that undermine or question the power of a corrupted, self-serving ruling elite that has failed the nation and its citizens.

This is why Donald Trump was routinely labeled a Russian shill by the mainstream media during the campaign. Regardless of what you think of Trump or Clinton, what can we say about a supposedly responsible media that so cavalierly spews fact-free accusations of foreign control? This is the height of irresponsible propaganda being passed off as "journalism."

Free speech implicitly carries the responsibility of the reader/listener/viewer to make a critical assessment of the content, its source and its aim: who benefits if we accept the narrative being pushed?

The delicious irony of The Washington Post's hysterical campaign to smear dissenters as tools of Russian propaganda is that it only serves to discredit the Post itself. For my part, I invite you to read all ten of my books and make your own critical assessment of the content and answer these questions:

1. Did you find even a single passage in the thousands of pages that favored Russian policies?

2. Did you find any passages that favored domestic resilience and self-reliance, localized economic development, and the promotion of innovations that favored the many rather than the few?

3. Don't you think it fair and reasonable that anyone accusing me of being a shill for Russian propaganda ought to read my ten books in their entirety and identify the sections that support their slanderous accusation?

If they can't support it, then isn't their accusation the very propaganda they claim to be identifying?

Just as a reminder: here's my chart of the Ministry of Propaganda (from 2007):

When Does "Managed Perception" Become Reality? (May 1, 2011)


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My new book is #8 on Kindle short reads -> politics and social science: Why Our Status Quo Failed and Is Beyond Reform ($3.95 Kindle ebook, $8.95 print edition) For more, please visit the book's website.

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Why Is the US Dollar Rising?

So where will mobile capital flow in an environment of rising socio-political risk, a multi-year USD uptrend and a dearth of safe, liquid markets?

On October 3rd I asked Is the U.S. Dollar Set to Soar? It seems the answer was yes. Here's the weekly chart of the USD I posted on October 3rd:

And here's the current weekly chart of the USD:

Note the apparent breakout above 100 and the constructive similarities to the 2014 breakout that was followed by a 20% increase in the purchasing power of the USD relative to other currencies.

This begs the question: could the US dollar be starting another extended leg higher that would eventually take it to 120, a 20% gain from its current level?

This raises a further question--why shouldn't the USD rise another 20%?Longtime readers are all too familiar with my many essays on the US dollar over the past four years, and so they shouldn't be surprised that the USD is moving higher.

While I have great respect for the analytic skills of the many dollar bears who have expected the USD to decline or collapse, we all have to respect the market's movement. In the case of currencies (which trade in the trillions of dollars daily), it's difficult to make a persuasive case that currency trends are driven by central bank interventions.

Policies such as interest rates and bond-buying, yes--intervention, not likely. The currency markets trade the entire Federal Reserve balance sheet--roughly $4 trillion--every two days.

So we have to look beyond manipulation for explanations of the USD's uptrend.The conventional view--which I have shared--is that the trend toward higher yields in the U.S. acts as a magnet for capital in a zero or negative-yield global economy.

The other dynamic that have been widely covered is the demand for USD to pay loans denominated in dollars.

While these explanations make sense, they don't tell the whole story.

Let's start with the foundation of currency supply and demand: capital flows.

The key characteristic of financial capital is its mobility. Mines and farmland are immobile, factories are costly and time-consuming to move, and labor is only mobile on the margins: the majority of the workforce is anchored by family, language and familiarity to their country or region of origin.

Moving to a new locale and new type of work is costly in terms of time, money and effort, and fraught with risks.

Now compare the ease of moving electronic money around the world. A few clicks and a few seconds are all that's needed.

The story of the financialization and globalization of the planet's economy is ultimately a story of easing the flow of capital. The neoliberal philosophy places a premium on easing capital flows in and out of any market, and turning every corner of the world into a market that is accessible to mobile capital.

As Marx foresaw, this removal of obstructions to the movement of finance capital has elevated finance capital to the dominant form of capital: industrial capital is no match in mobility and thus in profitability.

China is a good example of this. Chinese manufacturers typically operate on razor-thin margins, and many state-owned enterprises lose money and are only kept afloat by subsidies or state-bank-issued loans that are forms of state subsidies.

The big money being made in China is financial, not industrial. This story is repeated everywhere that capital has mobility. In emerging markets, hot money flooded in when the USD was in a downtrend, inflating bubbles in local real estate, stock markets and commodities as finance capital reaped the profits from rising emerging market currencies.

When the USD trend reversed, mobile capital cashed out and left the emerging markets in a digital flood tide. The mobile-capital driven bubbles in currencies, stocks, real estate and commodities all deflated, devastating markets and the social structures that depend on markets' expansion.

The global rise of populism is raising doubts about the stability of a status quo that has greatly enriched the few at the expense of the many. This rising wealth/income inequality is the result of mobile capital's ascendance to supremacy in profitability and political influence.

So where will mobile capital flow in an environment of rising socio-political risk, a multi-year USD uptrend and a dearth of safe, liquid markets? To answer, put yourself in the shoes of a manager responsible for $10 billion. You want to gamble billions in this environment on bat guano futures or hotel developments denominated in illiquid currencies?

Or would you rather buy USD-denominated assets that will gain in value regardless of their yield as the USD marches higher, and be able to sleep at night?

There is much more to say on this subject, and I will endeavor to add to this topic in future essays.

Longtime correspondent Cheryl A. suggested this topic--thank you, Cheryl.


Join me in seeking solutions by becoming a $1/month patron of my work via patreon.com.

My new book is #8 on Kindle short reads -> politics and social science: Why Our Status Quo Failed and Is Beyond Reform ($3.95 Kindle ebook, $8.95 print edition) For more, please visit the book's website.

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A Thanksgiving Suggestion: Stop at That Charming Place You've Zoomed Past for Years

Though this church is on a busy highway, stopping in the grass parking area creates a completely different experience from zooming past in a vehicle for the hundredth time.

Here's a Thanksgiving Suggestion: take a moment and stop at that charming place you've zoomed past for years on the way to some routine destination.

In my case, I've driven past this delightful rural church on the way to Kona (island of Hawaii, a.k.a. the Big Island) for four decades and never stopped once to enjoy its charms. We finally stopped the other day, and enjoyed a quiet walk around the church and a moment of respectful gratitude for the congregation that has maintained the church all these decades.

To my mind, a moment of gratitude for the work of others is a state of being much like worship; this little church beckons to all those who want a quiet moment of private worship or reverence amidst the cacophony of overscheduled daily life.

Though this church is on a busy highway, stopping in the grass parking area creates a completely different experience from zooming past in a vehicle for the hundredth time.

Walking up to the church, one's mind naturally wonders about the church's founders, how it came to be built in a dry, sparsely populated area of ranch lands. The church's proportions are satisfying, and the dark-red-brown walls with white trim is a classic Island look (dark green with white trim is another classic).

The few moments it took stop, get out of the car and contemplate the church's architectural charms, its role as a landmark and its purpose as a house of worship transformed a routine drive that has been repeated countless times into a memorable and moving experience.

The experience reminded me of the value in stopping by a charming place I've zoomed past for years or even decades. There are many such familiar, charming places that await my first visit; how about along your oft-traveled routes?


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My new book is #8 on Kindle short reads -> politics and social science: Why Our Status Quo Failed and Is Beyond Reform ($3.95 Kindle ebook, $8.95 print edition) For more, please visit the book's website.

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Why Reshore Manufacturing? It's the Only Way to Avoid Defective Pirated Parts

Reshoring the entire supply chain so it can be trusted is the low-cost solution once you add up the total lifecycle cost of a hopelessly counterfeit global supply chain.

There are two basic arguments against bringing manufacturing that was transferred overseas (offshored) back to America (reshoring):

1. It's too costly

2. The supply chain is now in China/Asia and it's not possible to source the parts needed to bring manufacturing back to America.

I beg to differ on both counts: nothing is more costly and destructive to profits than defective, pirated parts made overseas. Counterfeits made to look like legitimate parts are highly profitable to the counterfeiter and immensely damaging and dangerous to the manufacturer and end-user.

In a global economy burdened with massive overcapacity, the only way to maintain profit margins is to lower costs by cutting corners: in effect, defrauding customers by delivering deceptively reduced quantity and quality, and/or defrauding the end-producer by shipping low-cost counterfeit parts that mimic legitimate products.

Gordon Long and I discussed this systemic reality in Bankers Crippling the Global Supply Chain (34:50).

Bloomberg/Businessweek recently outlined the scope of fake parts and the impossibility of rooting them out of global supply chains: The Dangerous Game Behind Fake Ball Bearings:

Everything from shoe polish to medication to car parts is pirated. Estimates of the scale of the problem range from $461 billion -- 2.5 percent of global trade -- the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development says, to some $1.8 trillion, according to calculations last year by the International Chamber of Commerce. And while makers of luxury goods -- among the most prominent counterfeited products -- lose profit from the trade, there's little risk to consumers. In the case of more mundane stuff like bearings, forgeries can be dangerous as well as costly.

"Many people believe piracy is limited to handbags and other similar products, but the more serious issue is industrial companies," said Ann-Charlotte Soederlund, co-founder of the Global Anti-Counterfeiting Network, an umbrella organization of fake-fighters around the world. "The effects can be immensely larger than the consequence of a fake handbag."

Knock-off building materials have been shown to catch fire. Counterfeit electronics have caused military equipment to fail. And SKF says a sham bearing in a swimming pool pump sparked a fire that burnt a house to the ground.

Forgeries of its products typically originate in China, often from factories where legitimate competitors make their products, Aastroem said. Workshops there buy unmarked bearings, stamp them with the SKF brand and put them in packaging designed to look genuine, the company says. From China, the bearings are shipped worldwide to customers who often believe they are buying legitimate parts.

How expensive are defective products returned as a result of counterfeit parts failing? How costly is the damage done to brands that depend on quality for their pricing power? How expensive is it to field hundreds of quality-control personnel and investigators, all of whose efforts are the equivalent of shoveling sand against the tide?

Gordon and I discussed the practically endless list of costly products that have to be replaced or repaired (often more than once) due to defective/ failed parts.

What has been commoditified in the global supply chain is not quality or reliability-- what's been commoditified is pirated, defective parts that look exactly like legitimate parts.

There is a solution that's a lot cheaper than shoveling sand against the counterfeit tide: bring the entire supply chain back to America where production can be verified and the parts tested and ID'd/ labeled with technologies that cannot be counterfeited as easily as the parts.

Come home, America, is not just a political slogan: it's simply good business.

If you want to lose your brand, your pricing power and your customers, by all means, rely on a global supply chain filled with defective parts that cannot possibly be detected. Reshoring the entire supply chain so it can be trusted is the low-cost solution once you add up the total lifecycle costs of a hopelessly counterfeit global supply chain.

Join me in seeking solutions by becoming a $1/month patron of my work via patreon.com.

My new book is #8 on Kindle short reads -> politics and social science: Why Our Status Quo Failed and Is Beyond Reform ($3.95 Kindle ebook, $8.95 print edition) For more, please visit the book's website.

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NOTE: Contributions/subscriptions are acknowledged in the order received. Your name and email remain confidential and will not be given to any other individual, company or agency.

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The Triumph of the Empty Gesture

Public displays of empty gestures are no substitute for action.

Politics is the art of the symbolic gesture. The successful symbolic gesture gains gravitas by crystallizing a narrative that attracts a consensus that then powers policies of substance.

The politics-as-usual gesture is empty of substance, serving only to mask collusion and failure. Soaring Rhetoric(tm) is carefully engineered to mimic successful symbolic gestures of the past, but the purpose isn't to power positive policies: the goal is to distract the audience by making them feel that participating in empty gestures is a substitute for real-world actions of substance.

The net result is we now inhabit a culture that relies on empty gestures and feel-good appeals to past glories. This reliance on empty gestures and appeals to past glories typifies regimes in decline.

Historian Michael Grant described this decay of purpose and substance in his short book The Fall of the Roman Empire, a work I've been recommending since 2009:

There was no room at all, in these ways of thinking, for the novel, apocalyptic situation which had now arisen, a situation which needed solutions as radical as itself. (The Status Quo) attitude is a complacent acceptance of things as they are, without a single new idea.

This acceptance was accompanied by greatly excessive optimism about the present and future. Even when the end was only sixty years away, and the Empire was already crumbling fast, Rutilius continued to address the spirit of Rome with the same supreme assurance.

This blind adherence to the ideas of the past ranks high among the principal causes of the downfall of Rome. If you were sufficiently lulled by these traditional fictions, there was no call to take any practical first-aid measures at all.

This decay of purpose and substance in favor of empty gestures intended to symbolize progressive values has infected the entire culture. Rather than do something substantial and risky to change our neofeudal mode of production, people change their photo on Facebook in a public display that serves to satisfy their desire to "do something" but which avoids any actual cost or risk.

As a result of this reliance on empty gestures, we've become a culture that buys filtered tap water in plastic bottles that end up fouling our waterways, feeding the Great Pacific Trash Gyre, trashing the planet to "show the world" that we "care about our health" by buying Corporate America's filtered tap water.

The list of comically delusional empty gestures is essentially endless: the ecology bumper sticker on the fuel-wasting SUV; the public purchases of "healthy" supplements that cannot possibly offset a diet of junk food; signing an online petition that is really just an email-collection tool for spammers; wearing an American flag lapel pin as a public display of content-free patriotism, and a retch-provoking abundance of similar displays of "progressive" or religious self-righteousness.

Public displays of empty gestures are no substitute for action. You want a more progressive economy and culture? Turn off the mainstream media, start working on ways to extricate yourself from the state/cartel matrix, get out of debt, stop taking on more debt, start growing your own food (if you have no yard, in a community garden), use less of everything, starting with energy in all its forms, focus on DeGrowth, build your own networks of transparency, shared practical knowledge and reciprocity, start using decentralized crypto-currencies--and most importantly, just do the work, don't make empty gestures as a substitute for action that requires time, effort, money and risk.

Every minute wasted on self-righteous empty gestures or viewing someone else's self-referential, self-aggrandizing empty gesture is a minute you could have been doing something useful.

Please ponder three aphorisms of action:

Do the thing and you shall have the power. (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

We are what we repeatedly do. (Aristotle)

He who will not risk cannot win. (John Paul Jones)

 

Join me in seeking solutions by becoming a $1/month patron of my work via patreon.com.

My new book is #8 on Kindle short reads -> politics and social science: Why Our Status Quo Failed and Is Beyond Reform ($3.95 Kindle ebook, $8.95 print edition) For more, please visit the book's website.

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